Kingdom Coming

"Kingdom Coming", also known as "The Year of Jubilo", is an American Civil War song, written and composed by Henry C. Work in 1862, prior to the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

A pro-Unionist song, the song's lyrics are sung from the point of view of Confederate-owned slaves, who celebrate their impending freedom in the wake of their Confederate master having been frightened into running away by the approaching of Union military forces. They speculate on the fate of their absent owner, whom they opine will pretend to be a runaway slave in order to avoid capture by the Union military. With their owner absent, the slaves revolt, locking their overseer in a cellar as retribution for his harsh treatment towards them. The slaves then celebrate their impending emancipation by Union soldiers by drinking their absent owner's cider and wine in his kitchen.

Work also wrote the song "Babylon is Fallen" ("Don't you see the black clouds risin' ober yonder") which sees the American Civil War from the perspective of the black U.S. soldiers fighting for the Union.

Written in what Work perceived to be the dialect of southern slaves, the song's lyrics are rarely heard sung in recent years, with the tune usually played as a lively instrumental, as in the Ken Burns documentary, The Civil War.

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The song became the opening music for the character Pooch the Pup, starting with the 1932 cartoon The Under Dog.

"Kingdom Coming" appears in two MGM animated cartoons directed by Tex Avery, The Three Little Pups (with Droopy) and Billy-Boy, as well as in Michael Lah's Blackboard Jumble and Sheep Wrecked. The piece is whistled throughout all four pictures by a dimwitted wolf character voiced by Daws Butler (using the same slow Southern drawl he would later employ for Huckleberry Hound). This wolf character has no official name, but is commonly referred to as "Jubilo Wolf", in reference to the alternate "Year of Jubilo" title.

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Wikipedia